Snackfood rundown

Overload S'mores

These are cookies with marshmallow on top, then covered with various candy bits, like M&Ms or butterfinger crumbs.
I am a fan of marshmallows, the goofy way they are bouncy and soft. So I like the marshmallow part. The cookie was really dry though. Maybe because they'd been around for a while--they were on clearance at the target. The candy bits fell off when I tried to bite the thing, which was a serious construction flaw.
I give them a C+. And I don't think they'll be around for long.

Jerky Crisps

Meat Chips! I did not eat these. I just saw them and was grossed out.

A bargain at twice the price!

Just a dollar!

Dude, I would have paid a dollar to get out of gym class. I would have paid THREE.

I'm not alone here. Everyone hates gym. It's a peculiarly scarring experience that we all must share. (Those who enjoyed gym class, the exit is behind you. Take your dodge ball and begone!)

Let me count the reasons I detested gym class:

1. When I was an 8th grader, we had mixed gym with the 7th graders. We had to line up in alphabetical order for attendance, and I had the misfortune to be named something that sat me next to two blonde 7th graders who smelled my social incompetence. I recall feeling outraged, not so much by their snide insults, but by the fact that I was being PICKED ON by SEVENTH GRADERS, when as an 8th grader, I should have been exempt from their scorn! Hadn't I earned that, at least? Goddamn seventh grade bitches.
2. Playing racquetball, or badminton, or something with racquets, I swung hard at a ball (birdie?) and the racquet slipped from my weak grasp, and nearly brained the "coach". I got in so much trouble, which, had I deliberately thrown it at him, I would have deserved. I was pissed that I hadn't done it on purpose, as long as I was paying the price.
3. Indirect gym trauma, for which I was not present: Once two friends of mine were in they locker room changing after class, when a mean bully girl grabbed one of them and smashed her into the lockers (her infraction? giving bully girl a "look" during class! yes! classic!) and proceeded to pummel the poor thing. My second friend raced from the locker room to find the "coach", a male gym teacher. "Coach! Billie Jo* is beating up Sally in the locker room!" Coach's response? "I can't go in there, it's the girls' locker room!" Wow! Don't you feel safe now??
4. Foursquare! For when "Coach" is feeling lazy! It's a game based on ganging up three-to-one to get someone 'out'! How can that be a problem??

Are gym classes just unsupervised? The torment and anguish I'm recalling suggests that the teachers were mildly stoned at all times, or that they hated me as much as Billie Jo did. How much weed can you get with one dollar per kid per day?

*Real name, no joke.

Winter's BACK, bitch!

At least the cold gives me elevator talk.

I am a very naughty person but I am delighted today that the annoyance I described here has been banned from that blog. Not because of our stupid argument, but because he's a bee in everyone's coke. Apparently.

*shiver*

Reading Shakespeare's Sister I found this link to pictures of scary, horrible creatures of the deep, all apparently found washed up after the big tsunami. I have this bizarre and unfounded phobia (are phobias ever rational? really?) of creepy sea creatures. Oh, also those scary-ass cave creatures with NO EYES. Also centipedes. Eurgh! I remember when I was a kid I was screaming at some nasty crawly thing and my dad was like, "Why do you do that? Why live up to such a stereotype of women and girls?" I think of that every single time I run screaming from the house, begging my dear and patient lady to "deal with that thing oh god that horrible THING". (She always does. She is really top quality.) I don't WANT to be a stereotype, but the centipede MAKES me do it!

Self, you are not helpful

My calendar today has a question mark on it. That's all. Just a question mark. A little note to myself that says, "You are a jackass. Think before you make notations."
It really sets the tone for the day, that little querying mark. All day I will be wondering.
?
?
?
what? did? I? mean?

gah.

heh

Dear Shirky,

Jeepers, I completely forgot about your stint on the tramp steamer---- you should pardon the expression. I might imagine it was your tatoos that first attracted MJ to you at the dockside bar. As your uncle, however, I don't care to think about that.

And I can fix those demon eyes for you in Photoshop. But no amount of retouching can hide the evil in your soul.

----X, D

Borrowed Musuem

Tangential to AmericanFamily's post on clothing, I was thinking on all the arty and not so arty stuff we've accumulated over the years. Lots of it comes from other places or just other cultures.
I love having pretty stuff in the house. I really don't like the look of a bare wall very much. I just don't like the stark euro look, I guess. Plus, when we go places, I love coming back with a big pile o' junk. It extends the trip in a way. Every piece has a story about where it came from and how it came to be here, plus the stories about why it was created in the first place. The longer I stare at the objects, the more detail I notice about them, and the deeper their dimensions become. I also love the common motifs or elements in pieces from totally different cultures. The blue of the Virgin Mary's cloak and the blue of Krishna's skin: maybe they were first represented as blue because the lapis pigment was so dear. I love that artists in such distant corners of the world showed their love for their subject with the same technique--the brother- and sisterhood of artists, connected across time and distance. Or something.
Some pieces I love just for their beauty: our contemporary (but traditional style) bronze Parvati--with luscious curves and saucy gesture.
Some I love for symbolism--the set of tiny pairs of lovers. Some I love for its purpose--I can't play a lick of music, but someone else can, on the cute little charango. Some I love because it's just so funny--the Ecuadorian dog mask that freaks the hell out of our cat. She hates it.

I love the jewelry from Africa because making it gave me awesome fingertips of steel, until I could touch hot coals with my bare hands! Check it, suckas! (I can't do it anymore. ah well.)
So probably I'm an apologist. These pieces, to me, are merely beautiful, useful, or artistic; they may very well have other meanings that I'm ignorant of, and, well, that's the very definition of cultural appropriation, isn't it? I suppose that our tiny collection is representative of American removal of art forms and objects from their proper cultural context.
I think I'm going to have to live with it, though. I really can't bear to not collect things.

Canada in the hood

This morning there was a huge truck parked up on the sidewalk in front of the door. Really, like I had to squeeze by the truck to get off the front porch. It was marked "Gouvernement du Canada/Patrimoine Canadien". I peeked in the back--it was open--and it looked like just an ordinary moving truck, mostly empty.
What could this mean?
--Someone has stolen a Canadian government truck to move house
--Ambassador from Canada is moving into the alley behind my house
--CIA is pretending to be Canada while setting up secret surveillance location in the alley behind my house